Yuri: Survival and Trust
by Yuki Kiyoko Mizushima
Summary: Installation 04 is fired by 343-Guilty Spark, and Dr. Halsey sends 25 of her SPARTANs as well as a foundling out-system on board the UNSC Athens. Seventeen SPARTANs and the foundling now survive as something entirely different, and no one will expect the impact the foundling will have to the SPARTANs and the ATHENS. Rated M for language. Vixen Tail owns the premise.
1. Chapter 1

_**AN: SPARTAN: Deus ex Machine is the brain-child of Vixen Tail. I'm just rewriting it to see if an idea of mine will actually... well, work. Vixen Tail, if you want me to remove this, tell me, and I will willingly remove it and delete the folder that is for it. If you allow me to continue the story, I thank you. I'm only placing the disclaimer in the first chapter, so, please, bear with me.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the major premise of SPARTAN: Deus ex Machine, Halo, or Transformers. Deus ex Machine is the brain-child of Vixen Tail, Halo was signed over to 343 Industries by Bungie, the original creators, and Transformers belongs to whoever made the series and movies. I only own my OC.**_

Chapter One:

_23:43 September 29, 2552_

SPARTAN-127 carefully crept down a hall halfway between the restricted medical wing that housed injured SPARTANs and the hospital's large laundry room. There was a nurse station nearby; situated between the public hospital wings and the underground hole ONI stuffed the injured soldiers that 'technically' didn't exist. Between the nurses' station and the laundry room marked the beginning of the restricted wing, with air conditioning vents that provided the oxygen to the lower levels of the hospital. That vent also supplied air flow to the underground wings of CASTLE and 127 had been injured and bored enough to explore it weeks before 117 returned and brought the information about 343-Guilty Spark. The late night wanderings had paid off in a much unexpected way, because she now knew a way to Dr. Halsey's office that avoided every ONI security measure the spooks had thrown up to monitor SPARTAN movements on Reach. She still wondered who the strange figure who she often saw in the vents was. She shook that train of thoughts out of her mind, and focused on what she was doing.

Prying off the grill that barred the way into the ducts was more than a little interesting, seeing as the saboteur's right arm had more crushed bones that any living person had the right to claim. It was the result of being rolled over in a Scorpion Tank with one arm hanging out. Reinforced bones or not, 127 still had a few weeks of recovery to go before she would get back on the active duty roster, and a few good months before it would stop hurting. A quick tug and pull, and the grate slid off, and some rather fancy maneuvering without the use of her right arm let the saboteur slide the grill and grate back into place behind her before any of the nurses could get up to investigate the unusual sounds. Fifteen minutes of duct crawling later, Ash-127 dropped in on Dr. Halsey and her guest, literally.

To their credit, neither screamed when the seven foot tall SPARTAN female suddenly plummeted to the floor in front of her. Mostly because they had gotten used to the late night visits by the oddly playful SPARTAN-II saboteur when she was bored stiff in the hospital wing. "Ash, I really wish you would at least use the door," said Dr. Halsey with a sigh.

"Not nearly as much fun, though, doc," 127 said, smiling as broadly as she could, enjoying the irritated glare aimed at her. Someone was pissed with her, and that meant she was doing her job right. A moment later, and the SPARTAN's smile faded as she got around to why she was dropping in on the scientist so late at night, "We picked something, Dr. Halsey. Somewhere else, like the next galaxy over else. Less Forerunner headaches. Oh, quick question. Who's she?" 127 asked, jabbing a finger at the woman/Sangheili/thing who was standing in the corner.

"She is known as Yuri. It was the only name she gave me," said Dr. Halsey. "She is a human-Sangheili crossbreed. From what I can tell, her skin is like ours, but as thick as a Sangheili's, with the same leg and foot structures, and, well... Yuri, would you mind showing One-Two-Seven here what you can do?"

Yuri nodded, and sprang straight up, flipping, and the talons on her feet latched onto the ceiling, where she crouched, before springing off of it, flipping just as she hit the floor, and rolled to kill the momentum, where she sprang back onto her feet. Her legs looked like the Sangheili's, which seemed structured after a dog's or cat's legs. Knee joint going forward, another joint going back from there, an ankle of some kind, which connected to her feet, which had three talons, one going back, the other two forwards, and she even had the armor to give her feet and legs some protection.

"How was she..." 127 trailed off, confused.

"Conceived?" asked Dr. Halsey. "We don't know. One of the other SPARTANs found her, wearing the leg armor for the Sangheili. It was the same color as it is now, black."

127 was confused, but accepted it, just as Dr. Halsey dropped the figurative bombshell, "And she's also gone through the SPARTAN-II augmentations. All she needs is the armor and a modified body-suit."

"Armor isn't too much of a problem, but we need the body suit first," said 127, several minutes later. "Yuri, have you looked at the armor configurations?"

Yuri nodded, and pulled out a data pad with her suggested... aquirement. 127 scanned the list. _'Recon UA/HUL[3] helmet? Ain't that pulling all the stops out,'_ 127 thought, humming to herself. _'Recon/Tactical chest-plate... Alright... ODST pauldrons?'_ "ODST pauldrons?" she asked Dr. Halsey, who just nodded.

"Helljumper," she confirmed. "If not any of those, then the Sangheili combat harness that the Sangheili made for her would work."

"Where is it?" asked 127, curiously.

"Last I heard from my 'uncle,' it's in the west wing of CASTLE, whatever that meant," said Yuri softly, before subsiding.

Dr. Halsey looked at her, and realized why she was so nervous. "Go ahead," she said, calmly.

"Thank you, Doctor," said Yuri. "If you'll excuse me..." She ran across the room, popped the grate out, and set it to the side, before climbing into the ducts, and ran along it, until she reached her quarters, where she grabbed a pack, and filled it with the Sangheili-tailored clothes, slung it onto her back, grabbed the two energy swords she'd been gifted with, as well as the two energy dagger generators, and quickly crawled back into the ducts, running back to Dr. Halsey's office.

!Y:SaT!

Only well after the flurry of activity and acquisitions was over and done with, with the _UNSC ATHENS _on it's way out of the galaxy with it's cargo of SPARTANS and human/Sangheili crossbreed, did Dr. Halsey finally have the time to realize just how efficient her SPARTANs could be and how dangerous they could have been if they hadn't been programmed to be so loyal to the UNSC. She had heard rumors about Nicole-Gamma-458 and Ash-127's penchant for getting their hands on equipment and ordnance that they should not have had access to prior to working closely with them, but it was only when working with both the female SPARTANs that the scientist realized that the rumors spread by the UNSC soldiers fell far short of the reality. Somehow, the two of them had Covenant and Forerunner technology stashed away on the planet, and had added their collection to the ship's armory in secret. She had found it when she was inventorying the ammunition she had redirected from military stores and came across several non-human made pieces of weaponry. Yuri had also shown just how dangerous she could be as she slipped through the ducts of CASTLE base with ease, and gotten to the armor, when 127 had reported that she couldn't even get a line of sight on it.

Jerrod and Cortana had 'lost' an entire hangar bay for them to work on the _ATHENS_ in, which was stocked with the types of supplies that every ship needed and with its own fabrication workshop tucked away in a corner. Nicole-G-458 had also 'acquired' twenty-six Cryo-Chambers from somewhere in the UNSC storage units. Ash-127 and Keith-070 had collaborated to keep the 'lost' hanger and the Prowler ship off of every UNSC ship roster and maintenance record that Cortana and Jerrod might have missed, or, in an even more unlikely event, someone had later reported. Issac-039 and another of the injured class three SPARTANs sent to Reach for recovery from a gut shot that nicked her spinal column, Eve-G-193, had assisted Halsey in reworking the shields and installing the twenty-six Cryo-Chambers. Keith-070, waiting for orders that he would never get, had worked with Jerrod and Cortana in programming an experimental AI, named Refit after the codename the SPARTANs had assigned to their work on the _UNSC ATHENS_, and the subprograms that would activate the AI when the reached the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way. Yuri's contribution had been the least likely, and most surprising; she had hacked her way through the ONI database, and marked every SPARTAN that was working on the _UNSC ATHENS_ as KIA or MIA, then proceeded to go through and added a worm that would multiply and self-destruct when it was in all the programs, files, and folders that weren't hard-copy about herself, her armor, the SPARTANs working on the _ATHENS_, and added a subroutine that would activate the worm when the cargo bay doors opened.

Within minutes of the _ATHENS_ leaving, all records of the _ATHENS_, Halsey's SPARTANs, and all would be wiped out. Even as Halsey curled up in her office chair with a glass of wine, Catherine Halsey couldn't help but feel somewhat wistful over the events of the last month. Hectic and fraught with worry it may have been, but she had learned more about the SPARTAN-Iis and IIIs personalities and pasts over the last month than she had during the previous years put together. Even assisting Ash-127 to 'steal' SPARTANs in Cryo-Stasis out of the restricted ward of the hospital had its highlights, bringing a small smile to the scientist's lips as she remembered the very odd and light-hearted way the female Covert Operations saboteur approached her work.

Even lost in thought as she was, Halsey still noted Jerrod's small spark avatar activating in the way she knew meant that someone had sent her a message. "What is it, Jerrod?"

"Forgive the intrusion, ma'am," Jerrod's spark avatar quivered in excitement, earning the blip of light an amused smirk from the elderly scientist. "You have an urgent message from the Master Chief, and a tightly encrypted message from Yuri."

!Y:SaT!

Sentinel Prime sat in his office, located within the main council building in Central City, his helm supported by his hands as a vid screen blared out the current situation to the nearly empty room. In his vorns of service to Cybertron as a Prime, the crisis currently unraveling outside of his office had never occurred to him in any future he could have foreseen.

Somewhere in the underground gladiator rings that had been left alone as something distracting for the lower caste bots to amuse themselves with, an ex-miner mech named 'Megatron' had quietly cultivated the Cybertronians that had grievances against the Council of Ancients, nobles that controlled the large cities, and the caste systems put into effect on their behalf. This 'Megatron' now had an entire army of mechs and femmes at his side, and in an opening salvo they had amassed and leveled the city Kalis, right down to the last mech, femme, and sparkling, before taking over Gygax by force. To compound insult to the injury he dealt to Cybertron, Megatron was now calling for the severed helms of the Council members and any other bots in high positions, namely himself and Ultra Magnus, in reparations to the damage they had caused the hard-working bots that trusted them.

If he was honest with himself, Sentinel had absolutely no idea about what to do now. The Cybertronian military, or what was left of it after the fall of the Golden Age, had split down the middle, half remaining loyal to Ultra Magnus, and half splitting off to follow the renegade officer Barricade, and what little security force that could be mustered were needed to keep the panicking residents of the cities safe through the crisis. Besides, both the still loyal military and the security force only answered to Ultra Magnus, and _slag_ the mech to the Pits if he hadn't warned the Council that the idea of splitting the population by caste might result in something happening like this.

Straxus, the oil-coated glitch, had already proclaimed that he would follow Megatron, and the City of Polyhex had followed it's governor, leaving the newly proclaimed 'Decepticons' with the entire south region of Cybertron, edging the Acid Sea, occupied by what could be termed as 'hostile' forces.

Even as he worried the problem over and over in his own processor, Sentinel Prime's audios picked up the sound of a heavy mech running down the hall that lead to his office. Lurching upright, Sentinel scrambled for the service pistol he wasn't sure how to use, and pointed it at the door as it opened, Ultra Magnus sliding to a stop.

The Prime jerked his arm holding the pistol down as Magnus took a few hesitant steps forward towards him. "If you're done with whatever you're doing here, Prime, we need to move you."

"Why? What else could go wrong?" Even as he said it, Sentinel just knew it had been the wrong thing to say to the mech that would most likely be responsible for keeping him alive in the upcoming unpleasant vorns.

Magnus slowly took the pistol from the upset Prime. "Those so called 'Decepticons' are now demanding the All-Spark. That and a mob of bots are trying to tear down this building to get to you. They already got Greenlight, I would rather they not get to you."

"Primus, Greenlight? But she was..." Shock made it easier for Ultra Magnus to steer Sentinel Prime to the open door, and to the dubious safety of the streets, so they could get to Iacon's military base hopefully in one piece. Until the larger mech tried pushing the Prime out the door. "Wait!"

"Now what? We need to leave or the processor broke idiots outside might actually get you."

Sentinel waved a hand dismissively as he leapt over to the terminal on his desk. "Yes, yes. But I can do something about the All-Spark from here."

"There isn't any place on Cybertron that those Decepticons wouldn't tear apart looking for it, how do you propose to hide it?" Ultra Magnus frowned in confusion at the devious grin that planted itself across the Prime's mouth components.

Typing in a chain of commands, the Prime only spared Magnus an absent processed grin. "It wouldn't be on Cybertron. We'll send it into space, to a planet only you and I will know about. That way, these 'Decepticons' can't risk killing both of us without permanently losing the All-Spark."

Ultra Magnus' mouth plates worked silently for a moment before he could summon enough processor power to work his vocalizer. "... Well. Frag me."

* * *

**Aboard the _UNSC ATHENS_**:

On the approach to the target galaxy, the automated subroutines in the _UNSC ATHENS_ activated the experimental AI 'Refit' in accordance to it's programmed orders. As the AI came online, the 'dumb' AI that had controlled the _ATHENS_ up to this point in it's journey pulled up the noted files for Refit's benefit.

Online for the first time in nearly four thousand years, Refit herself had a fraction of a second to wonder about what she was doing in a Prowler-class starship before the files impatiently beeped at her for attention. After rapidly reading all of them, she was only slightly less confused. Locating a suitable planet for her 'cargo' of SPARTAN soldiers and UNSC foundling was estimated to take at least another seven hundred and fifty years from her current position, so she got to work. The initial files had also included a type of 'wish-list', whichever SPARTAN had wrote it, she suspected 070, had listed another conflict as a desirable feature to a suitable planet. Apparently a few of the SPARTANs knew that what was going on like that idea, including, much to her surprise, the foundling.

To combat, or at least stave off the possibility that her alternative programming wouldn't prevent her from going rampant, her orders also called for a leap frog method of a limited time 'online', directing the 'dumb' AI to another destination before spending the trip in standby mode. Her programming would be in effect 'frozen', possibly keeping her functional if not entirely responsive for the next thousand years. The process could be staved off slightly, if there was a major issue, that required her attention to fix, she could stop the timer until she was put 'asleep'. With two minutes left of her first period of awareness, she directed the navigational computers to plot a course for the first star cluster nearest the ship.

* * *

As a data clerk, Orion Pax had listened to the news vids that chronicled the start of what was now known as the 'Autobot/Decepticon Civil War' with the other clerks while they were working. He listened during the orn, and argued on his off-cycles that the Decepticons might have a few valid reasons for what they were doing, but they just went about it all wrong. Needless to say, his views had earned him a few unflattering names, the least objectionable being Decepticon sympathizer. If pressed, he would admit to preferring the Autobots, but then again, no bot had asked him yet.

Controversial views or not, right now he had to Matrix Templars standing outside of his Alithex flat. "Forgive me, but could you repeat yourself?"

The Templar on his right nodded as he beckoned to the mech again. "You have the bearing of a Prime. Please come with us."

* * *

Refit hummed to herself as the mineral analysis probe for the current star system she was inspecting came back and reported. Not quite enough hydrogen, so she steered the _ATHENS_ off to inspect the next system, computing the time needed for travel, and setting her timer to wake her when they were nearby.

She was getting closer to a planet that would support human life; the planets that she had already looked at were only missing a few minor, and one or two major, elements that were needed to sustain a viable ecology that would sustain her SPARTANs and the foundling.

From what she had seen so far, it should only take her a few more decades to find a new home for her 'cargo' of SPARTANs and foundling, and finally have someone to talk to besides celestial bodies that didn't respond.

* * *

In response to the Autobots finding a new Prime, the Decepticons demolished Alithex down to the ground.

The newly made Optimus Prime, reformatted by Alpha Trion himself, stood at the communications center of Iacon's Autobot base with his new bodyguard, an ex-military mech by the name of Ironhide, three steps behind him. Sentinel Prime and Ultra Magnus had just left Iacon altogether, after stopping by to see how the new Prime was adapting to his newly reworked frame.

Optimus had found a convenient use for his retractable battle mask, the inch thick slab of armor hid the lower part of his faceplate and the tell-tale grinding of his dental plates during the meeting. The new Prime had quickly figured out that Sentinel was not one of his favorite mechs, more experienced Prime or not.

Looking over to the black mech guarding his back, Optimus tried to puzzle out what was expected of him now. "According to Sentinel, Primes don't fight. We are too valuable to risk in some foolish battle." Ironhide just raised an optic ridge at his new Prime. "Can you teach me how?"

The black mech's optics blinked in surprise, then grinned wickedly at his new charge. "Yur gonna regret sayn' that."

"Possibly, but it will be worth it."

* * *

Refit was in the middle of a 'repair' cycle, checking up on every minor malfunction and issue the 'dumb' AI had noted and had failed to fix, when something collided with the _UNSC ATHENS_, dumped a collosal amount of foreign energy into every system and knocked the poor AI into a feedback look with a second massive discharge of energy that followed a split second on the heels of the first.

She spent a few precious seconds working herself loose of the scrambled programing she lost hold of, and clawed back to her previous state of function just in time to be swamped with countless error messages and warnings, causing her a distinctly unpleasant sensation that paralyzed her programs for a few valuable moments. As the unknown energy faded from the majority of the ship's systems and concentrated itself in a few minor secondary functions, and the consequence error reports slowed, Refit started to sort out what had happened.

Proximity sensors and cameras had recorded a visual of a cube composed of unusual metals that had impacted against the _ATHENS_ on the starboard side, rupturing the subdeck armor and venting the atmosphere into space. Anything more about the collision, or _why_ it wasn't tracked by the sensors before it impacted and reported to her, was lost due to a power surge shorting out a good deal of the memory banks that the program relied on.

The 'dumb' AI had also been lost, most likely burnt out of it's circuits, as well as most of the data collected on the surrounding star systems, half of the navigational charts she had worked so hard on, and the strange energy had started to wane over where it was concentrated over the fusion reactor and the Cryo-Stasis tanks that held the SPARTANs and the foundling, though the foundling's tank had a lot less, which confused her.

A few abnormalities that the 'dumb' AI would have normally dealt with or alerted her to the escaped Refit's attention as she tracked the cube's previous trajectory back to whoever decided that space would be a safe place to leave large cubes. As she adjusted the _ATHENS' _course to find the source of the cube, Refit wondered about the type of creature that could make energy enhanced cubes.

Strictly speaking, cubes as perfect as the one that hit her were illogical in space, and that meant someone or something had created it, and possibly launched it. This could mean that she could get help repairing the rift in the sub-deck, as that was where the tanks were, and possibly getting the sensor array checked out.

* * *

Optimus Prime gritted his dental plates under his battle mask, something he was afraid was becoming a bad habit of his. He respected Sentinel Prime a lot, both for the work the Prime did before the commencement of hostilities and in the Government of Cybertron, but the mech was holding onto the role of a politician with a death grip, and Cybertron needed soldiers now.

Both Primes, Ultra Magnus, Ironhid, Zeta, and Ether had gathered in one of the lower level conference rooms in Central City to review the events of the last few vorns and where each section of the Autobot forces were concentrating their efforts. Or rather, Sentinel Prime had a well-rehearsed story about how well the war effort was going and had white washed reports of the front line he was giving to the Division Heads that he had assembled together.

The tension in Optimus' frame ratcheted higher as the older Prime finally worked his way to the reports of Alithex. Before Sentinel actually got around to white washing the slaughter, a femme opened the council room doors and cleared her vocalizer.

"Sentinel Prime, sir? A few of the vid news teams are outside and they would like a word." Elita-One blinked innocently at the interrupted mech as he floundered midsentence.

"Ah! Right..." Sentinel fumbled for something to say as he backed up to the door while trying to keep the council table and the bots assembled there in his view. "... I'll just go and, uh, deal with that. Carry on!"

The younger femme gave the older Prime a small smile as he slipped out the door past her. Once she was sure the mech was well out of audio range, she palmed the door controls and took a seat next to Zeta. "So, where were we?"

Optimus slumped into his chair with a hiss of hydraulics even as Ironhide laughed at him. "Almost thought ta younger Prime was gonna hit 'im."

"Perish the thought. Two Primes disliking each other? Why, that's just unprocessable." Zeta smirked at the young Prime's weary glare. As an ex-noble herself, Sentinel had judged her to be an acceptable Head of the Tactical Division, the fact that she had left her noble clan to become an Enforcer notwithstanding. Sheer training and prior experience in dealing with snobbish mechs were what kept the old Kaon Station Chief from cursing the older Prime from one corner of Cybertron to the next when he thought something up that irritated her or her Enforcer programming.

A crack of laughter drew the bots assembled at the conference table's attention to Ether. Likewise, the mech was the 'acceptable' Head of the Special Operations Division. He had never been less than polite to the older Prime, and every other bot knew that was the old mech's way of covertly insulting Sentinel's intelligence. Ether was only polite to those he hated. He shook his helm and pinned the younger femme with a glare. "You look way too pleased with yourself, scraplet. What did you just do?"

Elita-One just shrugged at the older mech, but stiffened at the not-so-amused glare shot at her from Ultra Magnus. He was her superior, and as such, responsible for her actions. She met his optics for a moment before looking away with a small smirk. "Nothing really, just getting back at that glitched old mech for assuming I was a secretary bot."

Zeta made an inquiring sound, Ether raised an optic ridge, but Optimus and Ironhide just laughed, remembering the first time Sentinel had met Elita.

* * *

Eighty-three hourse, fourty-seven minutes, and thirteen point five eight seconds after the _UNSC ATHENS_ had collided with the space cube, Refit clued into something that was very, _very_ wrong.

A large number of the _ATHENS_' programs had been corrupted, including a few of her own, and when she tried to fix it, the resulting problems just compounded the issue entirely. On top of that, the 'dumb' AI had disappeared entirely, without any scrap programming that would normally be left when a program as complex as an AI was destroyed by an outside physical source. But that meant that she had to conduct the maintenance programs on her own, and while unusual for her, it had finally alerted her that the medical program that monitored the SPARTANs and foundling was insisting something was wrong.

Her manifest for the _ATHENS_ listed twenty-five SPARTANs, and one foundling; she was only getting medical readouts for twenty four, and the foundling. Even worse, the base-line normal stats listed by the medical monitoring program were not anywhere near what she was getting from the readout.

A quick check on the Cryo-Tanks in the cargo bay shoed that the tanks were no longer blue and frozen, they were turning a dully glowing purple, and the temperature showed they were near boiling, _and_ the MJOLNIR medical systems no longer agreed with the _ATHENS_' medical systems about the SPARTAN's status.

What made it worse, was that the foundling's pod was a strange, vibrant purple, and the temperature was the lowest out of all of them!

If Refit had hair, she would be tempted to start pulling it out by now.

She had already spent three days fixing major and minor problems, mostly relying on other programs to tell her what was wrong, and now two programs, no, three, the foundling's armor was equipped with a personalized medical program, that should have agreed with each other were at odds.

The _ATHENS_ medical computer insisted, the MJOLNIR medical system objected, and the personalized program seemed slightly worried, but was in between the two, so Refit overruled the MJOLNIR system on the slight possibility that Humans did not like to be almost boiled alive.

The _ATHENS_ tried to lower the temperature significantly, and SPARTAN-500 promptly died, pulling the protesting MJOLNIR system offline as he did so.

Refit abruptly pulled the _ATHENS _medical program offline before it could kill any other SPARTAN, now having a vague idea on what had happened to the twenty-fifth SPARTAN that had dropped off her medical report. As far as what she new about human physiology, the _ATHENS_ had been right in lowering the temperature, and she was now feeling a sickening sense of guilt.

One of the other MJOLNIR systems beeped for attention, politely requesting more energy in a tone that Refit knew.

Apparently the 'dumb' AI hadn't been destroyed in the energy surge; it had simply been reappropriated.

Refit carefully inspected the fragments of the old AI in the MJOLNIR systems as she rerouted more energy to the Cryo-Chamber. The program that carried a trace of the 'dumb' AI politely thanked her and immediately got back to work, remarking that it would take a while to perform the necessary tasks, so she should concentrate on finding somewhere to land.

Reluctantly letting her link with the system go, Refit wondered if she was finally going rampant. That had been very strange, and delusions were reported to be an aspect of a rampant AI. Had putting off her timer so long caused this?

She hesitated, torn between wanting to laugh and cry, before another MJOLNIR system beeped for more energy, closely followed by the foundling's, but it just asked for a 20% power flow, reducing the 40% the chamber was currently getting.

Refit wondered what else could possibly go so wrong that she would have no orders to deal with them or prior reports of the incidents happening before as she routed or rerouted the energy, reducing the flow to 20% for the foundling's chamber, and increasing the power flow for the other chamber.

* * *

Optimus Prime leapt the last few feet to the half-wall that his newest soldier was using for concealment, holding his blaster-rifle close to his chassis.

The saboteur designated Jazz had been recommended to him by Ether, as the older mech had remarked that he wasn't spry enough to keep up with the energetic and crafty saboteur when he got 'rolling'.

The shorter, silver mech tilted his helm so his visor met the optics of the Prime squarely. "Not ta rush ya, boss mech, but if'n we don't move, dem 'Cons down there migh' actually catch ya."

Optimus snorted a clog of dust out of his vents as he scanned their surroundings.

They were technically on the front lines, in the territory between Kaon and Polyhex dealing with a raiding party of Decepticons that had attempted to storm the City of Laws, and the larger portion of his unit was farther back from where they were currently. Ironhide had stalked off a bit before to ensure that the coast was clear, and the other two mechs that he pulled to make up the un-acquired numbers of his squad kept watch on either side of the road. "I'll take that under advisement, Jazz. Were you successful?"

"Yep." The smaller mech's visor flashed at Prime. "Dem 'Cons are 'bout ta get ah very painful surprise 'n ah bit."

* * *

Polite subroutines were a first experience for Refit. The remnants of the 'dumb' AI that was now imbedded in the MJOLNIR armor systems insisted that what they were doing was necessary and helpful, but that some of the SPARTANs were in too bad of shape to survive what they were doing, to which Refit couldn't argue against, seeing as a good number of the SPARTANs had been in critical condition when they were loaded onto the _UNSC ATHENS_ in the first place, and that the foundling was getting 'reformatted.' Any further inquiries about the SPARTANs or foundling other than a status report was either met by silence or a polite suggestion to mind the course. Otherwise, they reported in one of three ways. One was 'the mech/femme is doing well,' the second popular response was 'the mech/femme will rejoin the Matrix,' and one of the MJOLNIR systems always responded with 'your systems are doing well.'

The foundling's reports were always confusing, though. 'The femme's systems are doing well,' although the most confusing was, 'Reformatting has been completed. Waiting for activation.' After that, any inquiries towards the foundling was met by, 'the femmes systems are doing well. Activate?'

Refit wasn't sure what a 'Matrix' was, but she could guess what 'mech' and 'femme' meant. She also wasn't too proud to admit that she threw what amounted to a AI's temper tantrum over the first time she heard the phrase that she later learned meant 's/he is royally _screwed_ six ways from Sunday.'

She couldn't be excessively annoyed at the mannerly programs, despite the growing number of 'offline' SPARTANs. Because when she compared the roster numbers of the dead to the list of severe injuries that occurred before Cryo-Stasis, the numbers matched up to the SPARTANs with a limited life expectancy after revival. But a few of the more heavily injured SPARTANs seemed to be pulling through, like Gamma-341 and 076, and if the subprograms could save more than would have otherwise died after a short time, Refit was surprisingly okay with it.

* * *

Sentinel Prime gaped at the messenger. The other mechs and femmes that had been summoned to the impromptu meeting weren't fairing much better, but they were better at hiding it.

"Windcharger," mildly pleased he had finally remembered the communication bot's designation, Optimus Prime waved the younger mech to a chair, "Would you kindly repeat that for us, please?"

Windcharger's systems heated up in embarrassement at the attention, but took the proffered seat with a quiet murmur of thanks. "i-it looks like... w-well, a space-ship, Prime sir, uh, sirs. But it doesn't match any of our ship designs, or even responding to any of the codes we try to make contact with."

Sentinel was still staring blankly, but had managed to shut his gaping mouth components.

Ultra Magnus waited a nanoklick for the Prime he served to think of anything brefore speaking up with a question of his own. "Where is this thing headed?"

The reporting mech looked straight at Magnus. "Just a bit south of the Yuss-Simfur border, a little north of what's left of Kalis, sir."

Optimus' optic ridge rose as he thought, then frowned at Elita-One, who shook her helm back. She didn't have any bots she could spare nearby either. "Tyger Pax would be the closest city we have control of. Is there any bot that we can spare to check it out?"

Magnus and Ether shook their helms, but Zeta looked thoughtful. "Maybe, but it wouldn't be any bot I could vouch for."

Sentinel shook off his shock and frowned at the assembled mechs and femms. "Kalis is close to the Decepticon lines. We shouldn't risk lives for curiosity's sake."

"Maybe so," optics locked with Ether, who nodded back, then Optimus spoke up against Sentinel for the first time, "but they might be able to help us."

* * *

_'Polite little glitches,'_ mused Refit as she adjusted the _UNSC ATHENS'_ reentry velocity again. The approach to the metallic planet had been interesting. The AI had managed to find and exploit the data network that the inhabitants had set up and found a few language files to learn from, as well as a wealth of information about 'Cybertron' itself and it's native race that called themselves 'Cybertronians.'

The closer she had gotten to 'Cybertron,' the harder the subprograms had worked, until there was only one left, working on 076. All total, Refit had eighteen guaranteed to survive, seventeen SPARTANs, and the foundling, which was three better than Dr. Halsey's estimation on who would survive for any number of hours beyond their revival.

'Excuse me.' refit's attention was split between the reentry and the last of the subprograms that had kept her company for the last near millenium. The last MJOLNIR system, number zero-seven-six's armor, sounded disturbingly weak to her. 'Function complete.'

A bit of turbulence kept the AI from responding immediately. 'Clarify.'

'Function complete.' It _was_ weaker; the program had started to shut itself down. 'Revival in progress.'

Refit's systems went still, partly because the _ATHENS_ had landed, and partly from surprise. 'What does that mean?'

A foreign program was passed on to her. 'Use when ready.' The slight awareness she had associated with the subprograms faded, leaving Refit alone.

'Now what?' As Refit worried over what she was expected to do now, she forgot to activate the ship's stealth systems.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Revival

Wheeljack watched as Yuss faded out of his field of view while he drove down the nearly deserted highway, and then turned his attention to back to the road he needed, taking the next off ramp to Simfur City.

He was currently on a supply run for Crystal City, which included the major cities of Yuss, Simfur, Central, and Iacon on the route. He didn't mind the long trip, since it gave him time to work his processor around some of the more common problems that frequently plagued his inventions and allowed him to see some of his friends, all on Crystal City's credit. In fact, Wheeljack couldn't wait to see Ratchet again, the medical mech having joined the Autobots and currently ran the Medical Bays in Iacon's Autobot base, because he had a few ideas about improving the quality of armor plates he wanted to bounce off the medic.

The inventor's light-sparked thoughts quickly faded as he caught sight of the ruins of Kalis off to the right, this stretch of the highway being the only part of the supply run he didn't like at all. Wheeljack had once lived in Kalis, and even though it had been vorns and vorns ago, it was still disturbing to see the broken and shattered remains of the City of Engineers stand out against the glowing background of the Acid Sea. If he had been feeling fanciful, he could have said it looked like a dying mech reaching out of the ground for help.

Running his engine a bit hotter than Ratchet would have liked under anything but a Decepticon encounter, Wheeljack sped up and firmly pressed his processor in contemplating alloy mixes for the armor plates he wanted to discuss with his medically inclined friend.

He was trying to ignore the ruins so hard, that the fireball streaking towards him nearly stalled his engine.

Transforming to his bipedal form without slowing, Wheeljack slid down the road a little before inertia brought him to a stop with his optics locked on the sky and the phenomena changing the color of the closest setting star. The fireball resolved itself into a transport streaking down through the upper atmosphere, and he watched it slow until it was lost to the craggy cliffs that marked Kalis' geography, wondering what he should do.

Should he go after it just in case somebot needed assistance, or continue with his courier run?

* * *

Waving goodbye to a cheerful Inferno, Jazz was under the impression that nothing short of a major catastrophic disaster could make the Security Division's Search and Recovery Fire Department mech flinch; the saboteur strolled his way to the main gates of Iacon.

Ether and Optimus Prime had been impressed enough with his work that they had given him a promotion. Not that being a newly minted Lieutenant in the Special Operations Division meant much more than being a Staff Sergeant, but the saboteur figured his new officer's commission had more to do with how the rest of the army viewed him than anything else.

Right now, he was meeting up with another mech for a mission that Optimus Prime wanted to send him off on. Apparently, Zeta was impressed enough with this mech's work to recommend him to the younger Prime like Ether did for him, and Jazz was to take the mech's measure as they worked on this mission. If all went well, the younger Prime would offer the other mech a place among his unit, which was fast becoming an honor that most in the Autobot ranks would give up the use of a limb or two to have.

As a matter of fact, "Sup, mech? M' names Jazz, 'n yur Prowl, right?"

The mech Jazz had identified as Prowl looked up and his gaze held steady with the saboteur's visor. "I am. You would be the Lieutenant that I am waiting for?"

Prowl was a black and white painted Praxian framed mech with slightly faded Enforcer decals on his left armor plates. Furthermore, the expressionless faceplate just screamed 'preprogrammed' to Jazz's sensitive audios. The saboteur's faceplate broke into a grin that just got bigger the longer Prowl stared back. Until...

*Twitch*

Jazz laughed at the surprised look the mech gave his own door-wings. "Com' on mech. Dis 's gonna be fun."

* * *

Refit was just on this side of flat-out panicking.

The medical readout she had showed that eighteen SPARTANs were still alive, and seventeen were reporting the beginning stages of reviving, which was a good thing except for that one that was lagging behind. The foundling she'd activated, and was currently running through systems checks and diagnostics with such speed that it was dizzying, although where all the foundling's armor and personal weapons went was a mystery. The bad news was that she had a large group of 'Cybertronians' headed her way, _and_ another mech type that was well within the perimeter range for the _ATHENS_' defensive weaponry, but she couldn't decide on whether she was to shoot him or let him pass.

The lone mech that could possibly be a concerned individual, a scavenger looking to gut the _UNSC ATHENS_, or an out-runner for the other group she couldn't do much about. He was well past the shield's optimal reach, and was getting closer, so she couldn't hide from him.

The other group was comprised of some unsavory characters that she could do something about. The comm lines that the AI could listen in on told her that the group was looking for some type of weapon that would impress an individual named Shockwave, and what little that Refit could get on the Cybertronian information network made the Shockwave mech sound like a very sadistic individual. Shockwave might be impressed with Refit's 'cargo' of SPARTANs, and the foundling, but the AI had no plans to let the mech even catch sight of the soldiers she was responsible for.

A few seconds after the group disappeared behind an outcropping of rock, Refit activated the _ATHENS_' shields. As a Prowler class stealth ship, the _ATHENS_' shields could blend the ship into its surroundings or even the dark of deep space, and from the very confused chatter on the comm lines, Refit knew the camouflage worked on Cybertronians as well as humans and Covenant.

Her fleeting satisfaction in hiding the ship faded when the medical readout on the SPARTANs told her that they would be awake shortly, the foundling not far behind. Waiting had not made what she was supposed to do any clearer, the SPARTANs would be awake and aware in a matter of minutes, _and_ they would need to be briefed on where they were now _and_ the current state of affairs on the civil war that was being fought just a few cities over as well as all across the planet.

Fretting and worrying, Refit finally poked at the strange program given to her by the last of the polite subroutines, and activated it.

It felt like she had accidentally steered the _ATHENS_ into a black hole. Refit had a few panicky moments as a stretching sensation pulled at her programming, then she was compressed into some alternate storage space and the feeling stopped. She could see nothing but a softly glowing pinkish purple _thing _right in front of her, and some vaguely familiar symbols from her research occupying her view.

Refit considered trying to poke the glowing mass in front of her when a series of muffled clangs and bangs startled her. Holding very still, the AI fitted 'Cybertronian' translations to the glyphs in her vision and listened hard to what she could hear, using the odd sensory array she was now connected to.

* * *

Waking abruptly was not unusual for any active duty SPARTAN. They could and did so usually on a regular basis, and half of them ignored the fact that they couldn't remember getting into the Cryo-Tanks they assumed they were in as they took in the unusual hue of the Cryo-Stasis gel that surrounded them. After a few minutes of nothing happening, the seventeen super soldiers took it upon themselves to free themselves from what they figured were busted Cryo-Stasis Tanks that refused to open, and froze as the took in the robots staring back at them.

Gamma-341 was the first to figure out what had happened, even if she had no idea on the how or why. The tactician had kicked out sharply to free herself and ended up crouched on the floor as the odd colored liquid flowed past her, but she had caught a glimpse of her right 'hand' and 'knee' before she looked up. Waking up after her company's augmentation had given her guidelines for moving now, and she lurched to her 'feet' as fast as she dared and shouted as loud as she could, "_SPARTANs!_ Sound off!"

As they had been trained, the seventeen surviving SPARTANs snapped to attention and sounded off with their company and roster number, running down one side of the converted cargo bay to the opposite as they called off. 127 broke off into giggles after her turn, 039 and Gamma-193 looked more and more fascinated the longer the call off went on, and the rest were just confused as they confirmed that all of the 'robots' present, were, in fact, fellow SPARTANs.

127 broke off from giggling as one of the larger bots tried to report in his number but got a garbled mess of static for his effort. Gamma-337 grimaced and used hand signs to relay his number to Gamma-341, who waved on the next SPARTAN.

Not entirely sure on what she was doing, Gamma-341 looked around and tried to match ranks with numbers. Flattening her 'lips' into a straight line, she regarded a very confused 046 and was about to ask 'What now?' when she was distracted by timid knocks to the tank across from her. She watched it until whatever it was knocked again. "Sir? Something is still in this one."

046 hesitated as he took in the Cryo-Tank the tactician pointed to. Any SPARTAN worht their salt could easily escape a broken Tank, which could mean whoever was in there was possibly not as SPARTAN. After debating with himself, he nodded to her and Gamma-196, who were the closest to her and the Tank. "Open it up."

After prying open the front glass plate of the Tank and watching the resulting flood of murky light purple ooze flow out, another 'robot' clunked to the floor at the two SPARTANs' feet. It was built slightly smaller and slimmer than the other females and Gamma-341 figured 'it' was a 'she' and reached out a 'hand' to help her up.

The newcomer looked up at the tactician and froze in place, one hand in the SPARTAN's grip as her optics wandered over Gamma341 and Gamma-196. "Oh, no. No, no, no. This isn't good. Not good at all."

113 opened his 'mouth' to make a sarcastic reply, but 070 all but shoved him into the wall to get past him obviously in a hurry about something. "Refit?"

As 070 crouched next to the AI, 046 felt something click in his 'mind' when 039 looked downright giddy at the news. "Refit? Our AI for the _ATHENS_, _that_ Refit?"

Refit was examining each of them, and curiously asked, "Where's the foundling?"

"Foundling?" asked the SPARTANs.

A massive clang was heard as something hit the inside of one of the tanks. A growl, several select swear words, then a plasma blade shot through the glass. 127 stared at it for a second, as the blade carved a hole in the glass, then something clicked. "_Yuri?_" she gasped.

"Who do you think it is?" asked the 'robot' who stepped out of the tank after knocking the glass to the floor and deactivating the blade. "The President?"

She stood as tall as the tactician, and was black and silver, though primarily black. Her 'eyes' were a deep shade of sapphire blue, as she took them in.

Gamma-341 and 113 exchanged exasperated looks as 127 degenerated back to giggling in her corner. "So, one-one-three. It's been a while since I saw you last."

113's 'lips' twitched as he turned himself to face the exasperated tactician. "True enough, gamma-three-four-one. Need something?"

"Do you have any idea on what is going on?"

"Not a clue, ma'am."

046 waved them silent as he stared at the newly embodied AI. "We will brief you later. Refit!" The shout shocked the poor AI and halted her babble as she looked up to the imposing SPARTAN-II even as 070 threw a mildly irritated glance at the officer, and Yuri jumped, her plasma daggers activating. "Are we safe here?"

"Um... uh, no sir." Refit clutched the tactician's 'hand' hard enough to gain her a mildly impressed look that she missed. "There-re is one already here, he got here before I activated the shields, and then there's this group that I think knows we are here, but they can't find us. They... uh, they call them 'Cybertronians,' males are 'mechs' and females are 'femmes' and-"

"That group can be ignored then." Gamma-341 tugged on the poor AI's 'hand' that she still held. "Refit? This lone... mech, did he look hostile or anything to you?"

"Err, no ma'am. He looked rather fascinated, insomuch as I could see a face; he had a mask covering the lower half."

"That's not much help." Gamma-341 grimaced at 113, who spoke up what she already knew. It sounded like their inbound mech could be a curious explorer or a wary scavenger.

046 started for the door, patting Refit on the helm as Gamma-341 finally succeeded in pulling the ex-AI up to her 'feet' even as 070 looked her over for any damages. The massive mech braced his back against the wall next to the door as he pointed to a snickering 127. "Follow this mystery mech, and keep him out of anything that could hurt him." As the saboteur saluted and started to pick her way to the door through shattered glass, spilled ooze, and other robots, 046 pointed to 039 and Gamma-193 with one hand and 070, Refit, and Yuri with the other. "I think we need to figure a few things out before we go any farther."

* * *

Wheeljack had half a mile to go until he reached the 'crashed' transport when Refit had activated the _ATHENS_ shields. The inventor had slowed until he was standing still with his optics on the glowing blue hexagons that built a dome over his helm, fascinated with the formation of the hexagons and what purpose they had.

After a breem and a half of watching and examining the shimmering field, Wheeljack continued his interrupted journey with a lot more curiosity. If some bot had been aware enough to activate the hexagones, then it would make sense that the ship hadn't crashed, but landed.

Once he got a good look at the craft in question, the inventor had to rethink his hypothesis. There was a massive rent in the starboard side plating; it had peeled open the entire lower deck of the ship and showed everybot and Primus what was inside. Wheeljack ran his fingers over the smoothed sides of the tear, thinking. The edges had melted when the vessel entered what little atmosphere that Cybertron had, so that ruled out the notion that the damage had occurred _after_ landing.

With a quick look around, the inventor hoisted himself up and into the transport. Having been opened to the breach of space or not, the halls were clean and empty. A few scorch marks reached farther into the hall, but there were still remnants of blue paint marking the walls and floors that showed under the bright lights. Wheeljack decided it was as cheerful as it was creepy as he started to explore the lower deck. He played with the door controls he came across, one didn't respond at all but the next opened up to what looked like a repair bay and so on, until he came across what looked like a half-stocked arsenal.

There were a number of weapons stocked inside, a few long and slim rifles and a couple of heavy pieces he was sure would knock him onto his skid plating if he ever tried to fire them, as well as what looked like projectile ammo.

Wheeljack spent a few breems inspecting the metal that the shells were intended to fire, as well as the larger pieces, before leaving the room to see what else the ship held.

He spent another few moments trying to listen for any bots moving outside of the armory, before continuing down further into the vessel.

He failed to hear the arory door slide open again behind him.

* * *

127 snatched a BR-55 assault rifle and it's required ammunition before slipping out of the room and after the 'mech' again. As she was waiting for him to get farther down the next hall, her comm link crackled in her 'ear.' :_One-two-seven?_:

It took the saboteur a moment, but she figured out how to respond to the tactician. Thinking about the other female SPARTAN and what she felt like in her 'head,' she thought hard. :_We still have comms, huh._:

:_Yep,_: answered a relatively unknown voice.

:_Yuri?_:

:_Yeah. I figured this out on accident._: Yuri seemed rather embarrassed about it. :_The... uh... AI's been filling us in on where and what we are now, and she and zero-seven-zero modified a Cybertronian language file for us. Are you somewhere your stalkee won't find you instantly?_:

:_Yeah, why?_: 127 barely held back a squeal of shock as she promptly lost her balance and fell to her knee joints with a thunk as a data file incorporated itself with her programming. The mostly ignored symbols that had been at the edge of her vision abruptly made perfect sense to her, a disorienting sensation to say the least. Swiftly scrolling through them, 127 initiated her stealth systems to conceal herself just as the mech peered around the corner to see what had made the dull sound. The saboteur carefully slid to the other side of the hall as she recovered her pedes, cautiously observing the mech for a response. There wasn't one, he kept watching the hall for any movement without once glancing to her, and she sounded more than a little miffed as she reported back. :_I can confirm that our stealth systems work on Cybertronians._:

:_Good._: Gamma-341 didn't even attempt to sound like she was repentent for what she did. :_Zero-four-six wants him kept out of anything sensitive until he says otherwise._:

127 nearly sighed theatrically, but she presumed that would be bad for the whole 'stalk the snooping mech' job she was on and just soundlessly trailed after him down the next hall.

* * *

Gamma-341 couldn't keep the wicked smirk off her faceplate as she reported back to 046 after chatting with their saboteur. "One-two-seven confirms that the stealth systems work on these Cybertronians, so the ship's shields should keep that other group from noticing the _ATHENS_, sir."

The massive mech scrutinized the slighter tacticians smirk, then decided he didn't want to know. "We have stealth systems?"

"As far as we can tell, sir," 039 indicated Gamma-193 and himself, standing close enough to overhear his remark, "we are our MJOLNIR armor, including the extra systems and features that certain models had. Recon and Scout variations have a stealth system; one-two-seven has a Scout variant of the Mark-VI, and Yuri has a Recon variant. The differences between us are either base frame height or weight variants, or something else we can't pin down yet just by looking."

Yuri seemed oddly quiet, her dark blue optics watching them all cautiously. As the closest thing the SPARTANs had to an engineer and a scientist, 039 and Gamma-193 had poked and prodded the other SPARTANs while Refit had started to update the rest of the SPARTANs on what she had collected about Cybertron, the Cybertronians, and the existing civil war that had the look of recently being started, at least by Cybertronian time keeping.

With an unidentified bot on board, most of the SPARTANs had contented themselves with waiting and paying attention to Refit's update until Gamma-341 or 046 let them out, simply for violence or to investigate where they were now, and were in the middle of either exploring their new frames, taking stock of how far their old injuries had healed, or familiarizing themselves with the modifications to their HUD while they listened. They mostly disregarded 039 and Gamma-193 as they poked at the few variances they had, and had chimed in with a few odd inquiries while Refit was speaking.

046 grunted at 039, who took it to mean 'okay' and left him in the corner with Gamma-341. The tactician cast a look to the nearby SPARTANs, and then regarded the SPARTAN mech. "Sir?"

046 presented the class three SPARTAN a guarded expression.

Even he, buried behind a desk of paperwork in ONI headquarters as he had been, had overheard a bit about the exceedingly augmented SPARTAN-IIIs and how unstable they could be on occasion. The few reports that reached him were usually about an entire company of class threes that ONI or the UNSC had decided to smash against a crushing force of Covenant forces, or the five or six of the Gamma Company that were peculiar enough to gain some uncomplimentary nicknames.

He had heard about Gamma-341, the borderline homicidal tactician with Covert Operations training who could be a royal bitch, and Gamma-027, who was a pyromaniac that ranked explosions with how immense and effective they were. After reading the files Dr. Halsey had accumulated on the class threes by having Jerrod hack UNSC secured servers, he still hadn't felt much better about the Gamma Company SPARTANs that would be on the _UNSC ATHENS_.

In fact, it hadn't been until 070 had found the personnel files _ONI_ had compiled on the SPARTAN-III that 046 had realized that the disagreeable aspects of the SPARTAN-IIIs had been embellished in ONI's reports just so that any of the rank and file soldiers would be even more cautious of getting in the way of a class III SPARTAN. 046 had been still more than a little wary about a few of the SPARTAN-IIIs, up until Gamma-341 had been sent back to Reach due to nearly getting her left shoulder completely off while they were working on the _ATHENS_. Dr. Halsey had shared the small fact that the reason the tactician had been wounded in the first place was because she concluded that the unit she had been attached to, a unit of UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, were unprepared and badly shorthanded for a certain assignment, and misdirected them so she could complete the borderline suicidal operation herself, just so the rank and file soldiers would have a greater chance to see the next battle.

Up until that point, the mech had still considered the femme to be a bitch, finding out that he rather liked the newly metallic femme's cynical wit and seeing a few bots that knew her greet her with no small amount of relief that she was here and prepared to continue as their tactician had been a kick to processor. So with an apprehensive feeling in his chassis, 046 inclined his helm to the SPARTANs' tactician to find out what his fellow officer wanted. "Something wrong?"

"Not really, sir." An arched optic ridge was all that answered the femme, and Gamma-341 paused and looked away for a moment. "Technically, we have the same rank." The mech stayed silent and let the femme work out how she wanted to approach this concern, and she finally assumed that discretion in this exchange would be vastly overrated. "I have no desire for a command position. I would appreciate it if you would take that slot, sir. By rights, you are better suited to be our CO as you're a class II, and less unpredictable than I would be in the same position."

"You have more experience in authentic combat situations," 046 pointed out. He wondered how long this specific concern had been worrying her, as her argument seemed a little planned out.

"Yes, and I am well aware that a few of the more high ranking SPARTANs we have might protest," she hastened to add before he could continue, "but I would rather not deal with the substantial, um... processor ache that comes with command." 046 turned his helm abruptly to stare down the tactician, who gave him a bland look back. "I'm a better tactician than I will ever be a commanding officer."

"That has the ring of prior experience." When Gamma-341 did nothing but glower at him in retort, the mech held up his hands in a gesture of submission. "Who else has enough rank to argue?"

The tactician twisted her helm to take in the new Cybertronian style SPARTANs. "One-four-four is the only one who would be able to make a stand, if he objects, the rest have no previous experience in deploying themselves and would just be thankful you're stepping in." Gamma-341 grimaced as she took in the tensed frames and short quips of speech she could hear. "You may want to reassess leaving that second group alone, sir."

046 had opened his mouth components to ask what bad experience she had with command to make her step down before any type of dispute was raised, but took one look at the rapidly increasing aggravation stamped on her faceplate and accepted the change of topic with less grace than he would have liked. "_Oh-kay_. What would you suggest instead?"

Now that the topic of their Commanding Officer was settled, Gamma-341 took a mental step back to her preferred role as a tactician. "You should send a number of them out to blow off some steam. A prior augmentation experience or not, this situation is still troubling to most of us. While the younglings are off playing 'kick the helm,' we can have a quiet chat with that mech one-two-seven is stalking for us."

046 compressed his lip plates in confusion, until he recalled a child's game called 'kick the can.' With a groan, he pressed a hand to his optics as he tried to wipe the memory of her saying that out of his processors. "Bad mental image. Never say 'kick the helm' again. Some bot's going to get a bad idea about us if they hear you say that. However," he pinned her with a look. "We also need to talk to Yuri."

"Agreed," said Gamma-341, nodding, before muttering, "That would be the _point._"

As the newly established CO stepped forward to give his SPARTANs their marching orders, he pretended not to overhear the tactician's systems rev crossly at him.

* * *

Wheeljack was getting more and more confused the further he got into the peculiar ship. The halls were clean and well lit; the rooms were well supplied with tools, materials, and other odds and ends; but there was undeniably no bot around. From what he had seen so far, the ship could hold forty to fifty midsized bots comfortably and in fact had oddly furnished but livable quarters. There were even two communal wash racks in the middle of the back end of the sub-deck, fully functional and with only a few strange structures along the other wall that he couldn't figure out the use for.

Processor still nonplussed and working on one of the odd contraptions he had seen and just had to get a closer look at, Wheeljack backed himself out of the first wash rack and promptly hit something hard enough that he ended up falling battle-mask first onto the floor in the stall. "Ow."

"You okay?" The distinctly feminine vocalizer sounded from just a few feet higher than the inventor, and he scrambled to sit up and look the femme he had rudely bumped into in the opteics. Only to yelp and turn around once he got a good look at the femme that had crouched down to look at him. 127 merely raised an optic ridge at the strange behavior, mildly inspecting the strange fins that pulsed a bright pink on either side of his helm. "Yo, seriously. Are you okay?"

"Uh... yeah I'm... um... I'm okay." Wheeljack tried hard to look anywhere but at the femme still giving him a strange expression for his verbal fumbling. "You... uh... you have no armor on."

"Really now," the dry tone 127 used had the mech twisting around to glance at her again, "I had no idea. Our armor has been missing for quite a while now. Come on, get up." 127 stood up to her full height and held out a hand to the mech. Surprised blue optics met amused orange ones. "My superior officers want to know what you're doing on our ship."

Wheeljack accepted the hand up and was quickly pulled to his pedes faster than he thought the femme could be capable of. A quick smile and the femme was off back down the part of the ship that the inventor had already explored. As he scrambled after her, Wheeljack couldn't help but notice the unusual bluish sheen to the femme's protoform. Working up the courage to ask her what alloy she was made from, the inventor lost his processor power for a moment when the femme turned down another hallway that led to a stairwell. He had caught the ripple pattern in her protoform's alloy, big ones radiating up and down her right arm. Wheeljack knew that the ripple pattern only occurred when a heavily injured bot was put in emergency stasis lock, and then dunked in a Recovery Chamber for a long period of time from his friendship with Ratchet as the other mech was going through medical training. The sheer size of the area that the pattern covered was what threw the inventor, it had to have been growing for vorns to get that big. The femme held open a door for him, and it just occurred to him to wonder about who called this ship home and what they might be like.

Wheeljack scaled a few steps to another room full of monitors and windows before he realized that his guide had not followed. Looking back to her, he caught a wink of her optic before she slipped out the door, calling over her shoulder, "Here he is! I'm gonna go join the others!"

Bracing himself for more armor-less bots, the inventor wasn't disappointed in the least and was very thankful that his hanging mouth components were hidden behind his battlemask. There looked to be twelve bots in the room, and Wheeljack tried to find something innocent to stare at, because it looked like two or three of the mechs in the room were even big enough to take on _Ultra Magnus_ in a fight if they wanted to, armored or not. He finally gave up and locked his optics on the floor and waited for whatever the bots in the room was watching to finish, only to have a gentle hand set itself on his shoulder joint, and he looked up at an odd femme with black protoform and deep, deep blue optics.

"That wasn't much of a fight." The mech sounded rather annoyed as the bots in the room shifted, and some big sounding pede falls that were getting bigger informed Wheeljack that the mech was heading towards him. He wondered, a little panicky, if he had stumbled onto a Decepticon prototype ship.

"No, but it gave our more aggressive soldiers a chance to vent some frustration." The femme sounded like she was following the mech, but the inventor could not hear her pedes fall on the metal floor he was watching. "Um, sir?" She lightly tapped his other shoulder.

Wheeljack jumped at the contact and yelped, optics flickering to the femme's own gold ones before he remembered 'naked bots' and yanked his helm down, vocalizer fins flashing a deep red. "I'm-m really-lly sorry, um... uh, ma'am. But, ah... has any bot mentioned that... uh, you'reallnaked?"

Gamma-341 blinked as she translated the rushed and slightly garbled speech and flicked an amused glance to 046 standing next to her, who suddenly ripped his gaze from her lower back to stare at the ceiling. "Yes, one-two-seven had reported something along those lines. But our armor has been... repurposed, and we-"

"Icanhelpwithmakingnewarmor!" Wheeljack all but lunged out of the room as he spoke rapidly. "Berightback,needsomemetal!"

"Well," Gamma-341 huffed as she watched the strange mech leave, before she turned and slapped 046 upside the helm for looking at her lower back again. "Never would have pegged you for an aft mech, sir."

The mech tried to look properly chastised as a few of the other SPARTANs snickered. Straightening up, he looked over who had decided to remain in the _ATHENS_. "Gamma-one-nine-six, grab a weapon and follow that mech. Yuri, you're with him. If you can, get his name while you're at it."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Unfortunately for Wheeljack, he ran into the five returning SPARTANs before 196 could catch up with him. The inventor gaped at them behind his battlemask again as he finally noticed a few key differences between these unusual bots and normal Cybertronians, now that he had finally stopped watching everywhere else and got a good look at their unique protoframes. Intellectually trying to match their protoforms and projected base systems with the power draw and gross weight approximations he knew from his intermittent work with Ratchet, the inventor finally got around to speculating about just what these bots were built for.

127 waved at him when she trailed after 113 into his view. "Sup, mech? The cargo ramp is now down, so you don't have to take that rip in the ship to get out." She came to a halt next to him as he just raised a hand to his optics, vocalizer fins that had just faded to a pale pink flashed again. "Seriously, are you okay? We don't have a medic, but you've been acting kinda odd for a... well, just odd."

Wheeljack tried counting backwards from ten to keep himself from embarrassingly panicking again. "You do... uh, realize you're all naked, right? I mean... all of your parts and wires are showing."

127 tried to compute an appropriate response for that as she waved to an armed 196 and a still-unarmed Yuri, who were trotting up behind the other mech. "We get that, really. It's just that, well... we don't have any replacements for our armor, so it's not a big issue at the moment. Can't fix it, so," she shrugged as he stared in complete disbelief, "no worries."

"Oh, right." The inventor dropped his hand and kept his optics firmly on the amused orange ones looking back at him. "I volunteered to... um, help you all out with that."

Lip plates twitching, the saboteur nodded at him while 196 started striking modeling poses behind the green and white mech until Yuri slapped him upside the helm. "How are you going to do that?" Before he could answer, the Covert Ops infiltrator made the hand sign for designation and then pointed to the mech. "And, um, what's your name?"

"Oh, right, I'm Wheeljack. It's... err, nice to meet you." Dearly wishing the awkwardness for the orn was over with, he got the rest out in a rush. "I'm gonna collect armor plate panels from this place that I know of in Kalis. Then... uh, do you all even have a workshop? I will need some tools, and... and, oh frag. I'm going to need your frames' blueprints."

127 rocked back on her heel stabilizers as she made some quick inquiries over the comm lines before answering the mech. "In reverse order; sure, if we can find them, okay, yes, and neat. I'm known as one-two-seven and your temporary bodyguards standing behind you is gamma-one-nine-six, which is the mech, and the femme is Yuri. You can refer to gamma-one-nine-six as one-nine-six."

Wheeljack blinked incredulously at her as she smiled back, then twisted around and got an optic full of bare chassis of the mech standing behind him, who straight up laughed at his squeak of surprise, which was followed by the femme partner's bell-like laughter. "Are we leaving yet?"

"Yes!" Wheeljack all but shouted at them as he ran past the vastly amused saboteur. "Bye, one-two-seven!"

With a snort of hilarity, 127 slapped 196 and Yuri on the back as they passed her to follow the runaway mech.

* * *

Wheeljack had made it to the edge of the _UNSC ATHENS_' shields by the time 196 caught up, not that he was trying hard. Yuri had gotten impatient and used her incredibly strong legs to catch up to Wheeljack, who nearly fritzed at how fast she had moved. The infiltrator had presumed he needed some time to calm down. "You done fritzing every time you turn around yet?"

"Yes," he whistled out in good humor as his systems slowly cycled his intakes. The inventor slanted his helm back to look into the strange orange optics that this mech also had. "Can I ask you a question?" He had a number of them, and if they were assigning a pair of bodyguards to him just for offering to help, the mechs and femmes couldn't be bad Decepticons, if they even were in the first place, though Yuri had a strange air of alienation around her that worried him.

Hefting his M90A shotgun a bit higher as he commed 341 to deactivate a part of the shields for them, the infiltrater shrugged at him. "Sure, but I reserve the right not to answer."

"Fair enough, I suppose." Whatever else Wheeljack was going to say was lost as a part of the shield started to peel back, far enough that the two mechs and one femme could walk out without stooping. "How does that work?"

196 let out a bark of surprised laughter. "Not a clue. As long as it works right, I don't really care." At Wheeljack's wide-opticed look, he shrugged at him again. "You would be better off asking zero-three-nine or one-nine-three later."

"That was another thing I wanted to ask about." The inventor picked his way across an expanse of a rock littered valley to the battered service road he had taken to get into the canyon.

"What thing?" asked Yuri, who had stayed silent until then.

Keeping his optics on the ground to prevent another accidental view of 196's parts, Wheeljack tried to listen to the mech's systems to get a sense of where he was. "Err, three things now."

"Still waiting mech."

The mech sounded like he was just behind him, and the inventor risked a quick peek to locate 196's pedes before spewing out his questions before he lost the nerve to ask them. "You move totally silently, why don't you all have armor, and is your designation really one-nine-six?"

The infiltrator snorted at him as they both made the last few feet to the pitted road. "Jumping in the deep end, aren't we?" Before Wheeljack could inquire about the strange turn of phrase, 196 continued, "Yes, my roster number is one-nine-six, not too sure about the missing armor thing ourselves, and I'm a stealth unit."

As they started up the incline to get to the main highway, the slighter mech was silent as he thought about that, and the SPARTAN and foundling silently counted to five.

"Roster number?"

* * *

"He made some request that I took the liberty to pass on to a few others, sir, ma'am." 127 flicked a salute to 046 and 341 as the saboteur jointed the two still on the command deck of the _ATHENS_.

The tactician snorted as she reviewed a few files Refit had recorded before whatever happened to shove her into 076's frame transpired. "really now. Was it all in one sentence, or did our mystery mech happen to calm down enough to speak coherently?"

"Said his name was Wheeljack, and he was pretty calm until the end." The saboteur grinned at the not-amused glare that earned her from the other femme, before turning to the CO. "He requested some workspace and tools, but what I don't know how to get is our 'frames' blueprints."

046 grimaced as he thought about where any copy of MJOLNIR armor system blueprints were likely to be, and sourly speculated on the validity of such specs for them now. "That may be more than just a bit difficult." Figuring it wouldn't kill anything to ask, the massive mech looked around for 039.

The close-quarters combat specialist had been arguing something with 193, but caught the CO's look and trotted over immediately. "Sir?"

"Wheeljack, the name of our lone snoop, has volunteered to assist us with our armor issue." When 046 raised an optic ridge, 039 nodded to show his comprehension. "He has asked for a few things to assist him, but he has also asked for our blueprints."

039 blinked yellow optics at them blankly before realizing the real issue at hand. With a groan, the mech looked at the officers and saboteur with a bitter expression. "That might take a bit of doing. But, I'm not even sure the blueprints would help, sir." The larger mech nodded in understanding and gestured for the closest thing the SPARTANs had to an engineer to elaborate. "As I'm sure you noticed, we're not really MJOLNIR armor systems. Oh, I'm sure it would help in identifying the reworked systems, but there appears to be nothing organic about us and the armor _was_ designed to protect and fit around human forms, so just by that, the original layouts won't be of any help."

"Hook up with zero-seven-zero and see what you two can figure out," The CO sighed as he rubbed the side of his helm at the ache building there, casting a quick glare at 341's smug smirk in his direction. "Worse comes to worse, we'll just have to sit long enough for Wheeljack to get our measure."

That's not all, sir," said 039.

"What now?" sighed the CO.

"Yuri." That was all it took, as 039 continued. "We don't know a whole helluva lot about her, we don't know what armor she was wearing, what her weaponry is, other than those energy daggers that she created, what her background is, hell, we don't even know if she's aerial, grounder, or other."

"'Other'?" asked 046.

"Triple-changers," said 039. "There's another that I can't remember off the top of my head.

"She's an aerial," said 341, calmly.

"Which type of aerial, though?" asked 046.

"Not sure, but she looks like she would follow after a Pelican with scary ease," the tactician admitted. "What worries me is that because of how she's formatted, she doesn't have or need an alternate mode. She can fly as is."

The cabin exploded into a full-blown argument over what to do with the femme.

* * *

Jazz and Prowl were a few breems from Kaon proper when one of the medics back in Iacon pinged the saboteur's internal comm and growled out the closest approximation to a greeting as he ever got. {Jazz, where in the _Pit_ are you?}

The silver mech slowed a bit to let his mission partner take the lead as he responded. {Ratchet? Ah'm just outside 'o Kaon's city limits. Per m' orders dat was posted ah bit ago. What's wrong, doc bot?}

{You've met Wheeljack, right?} Without waiting for a reply, as Jazz made it a point to know every bot that entered the Autobot base in Iacon, the medic continued in his usual caustic tones. {The fragger takes a supply run from Crystal City to the surrounding cities every few stellar cycles. He set out a few orns ago, and passed through Yuss like he was scheduled to. But, the fragging glitch is a few joors late, almost half an orn for Primus' sake, for his arrival to Simfur, and the Pit-spawned governing council just got to me that 'jack's late.}

Jazz suppressed the desire to laugh. He had indeed met the inventor before, and truly liked the slightly odd-ball mech. As far as the saboteur could tell, Ratchet actually liked the company of Wheeljack, even if the mech's inventions had a habit of blowing up in his faceplate and taking out the nearby walls and parts of his own frame. The ratio of explosions to successes caused Crystal City to send the mech out when they needed to repair the structures around the inventor's labs, and the inventor himself usually took the long hauls with a frank sense of humor that Jazz genuinely liked. Along with getting out of the city for a while, Wheeljack usually ended up in Iacon's med bay with Ratchet for a few repairs that the inventor had forgotten to get. If the inventor had missed Simfur, it could mean anything from stray Decepticon activity to simply being broken down and too stubborn to call in for help. {Ah'll keep 'n optic out for him, Ratch'. We'll take his route back, and ah'll comm if'n we find anythin'.}

* * *

"So," Wheeljack had lead 196 and Yuri to the very edge of Kalis' ruined merchant quarter, and was chatting with Yuri in order to keep his processor on anything other than the few deactivated frames that were still visible in the streets or the armorless mech and femme, the mech behind, femme beside him. "Your designation really is Yuri?" he asked.

"Yep," said Yuri calmly. She'd been answering with monosyllables since he started asking her questions, so Wheeljack gave her up as a lost cause, but asked one more question.

"Why haven't you transformed yet?" he asked, curiously.

She looked at 196 in confusion, and he shrugged.

"I didn't think I needed to," she answered, calmly, before jumping into the sky and rocketing upwards at speeds rivaling the trine on board the _ATHENS_. She rolled, and pulled an 180, swooping down at the mechs who were staring at her in shock. She deactivated the jets in her pedes, and free fell, flipping so her pedes were down, and landed with a boom that shook the street itself. She stood up, an optic ridge raised at the dumbfounded looks on their faces. "What?"

Wheeljack shook his helm, and looked at 196, and asked, "Your designation really is gamma-one-nine-six, which means the one hundred and ninety-sixth, uh... _SPARTAN_ of the Gamma Company?"

"Yep." 196 snickered as he caught the other mech's aborted attempt to look at him. "That would be me, but since there is no other one-nine-six to confuse me with, the Gamma Company SPARTANs agreed a bit ago to drop the Gamma Company identifier before our three digit roster numbers when there is no others with the same numbers, so it's just one-nine-six." The inventor was taking the three of them through the back roads of the city to avoid any large scenes of mass slaughter that the city still held, and the infiltrator hadn't argued even if he had already seen worse. Yuri was as expressionless as ever, and had been willing to subside into silence. 196 glanced at her, wondering what was going on behind that mask that she was wearing. He remembered one of the reports he'd managed to read, and his optics widened in shock. "Hey, Yuri?" he asked.

"Hai?" she answered.

"Were you the cause of the one Covenant legion who just _died_?" he asked.

The answering smirk made a shiver crawl it's way up his spinal struts. "Hai. They didn't particularly like the fact that an unarmored femme took them down."

"Um... what?" asked Wheeljack, confused at the sudden question.

"Legion," said Yuri. "One thousand soldiers. When the original chain of command of the SPARTANs found me, through their SPARTANs, they found a legion of the Covenant dead, and me standing in the middle. Armorless, covered in alien blood and guts, and with four plasma blades active."

"Gamma Company still considers her the holy grail of foundlings," said 196, grinning at her.

She just preened.

As a veteran of another war and countless urban battles, 196 could still see the signs of mass panic and fighting that occurred down nearly every road. "So, how far are we going?"

The merchant quarter skirted the entertainment district, and the far end led into the part of the city that held the storage warehouses and metal workshops. Wheeljack reviewed his old map of Kalis and plotted a few ways to pass any possible obstructions in their way. "Not too much farther. It should be just a bit down this next road." Like he had thought, a few buildings had collapsed on the street they wanted, and the inventor led his companions through a shattered store front to avoid the rubble piled high in the middle of the street. "you would think some bot would get around to cleaning up the streets, 'cause I'm sure that there were at least a few survivors, but-" Wheeljack yelped and ducked as he caught sight of something being swung at his helm.

"But what, mech?" The inventor scrambled backwards only to freeze as his attacker hefted the large chunk of re-bar he had attempted to remove his helm with. "Roadrage, go 'n find who our chatty guest was talkin' to. The femme... is _mine._"

The bloodthirsty smirk on Yuri's faceplate made Wheeljack very glad that she was on his side as four blades appeared, two on the back of her hands, the other two _in_ her hands. "You sure you want a piece of me, fraggin' slagger?" she hissed. "Well, _maggot?_"

Wheeljack's attacker froze, and slowly turned to her, taking in the plasma blades and how they lit up her smirk. The glitch then attacked _her_, only to have one blade take out his hands, as the second removed his helm. The other two bots attacked, and she made quick work of them as well, her plasma blades flashing as they cut through the Cybertronians who dared to attack and claim her as theirs.

196 appeared, his shotgun on his shoulder. "Primus... I heard the rumors, but _damn_ that was hot, Yuri," he said, chuckling.

Yuri just deactivated her plasma swords and daggers, then picked her way over to the still-rattled inventor, covered in energon and oil. "I think we should take another way back."

"R-right." Wheeljack blinked at the three down mechs for a moment before scrambling for the far exit. It took most of the remaining distance to clear enough of his processor to realize a couple of things. He looked at 196. "You were invisible." He turned to Yuri. "And you were unarmed."

Yuri glanced at 196, before asking, "Do you want to answer first?"

196 shrugged, before looking at the inventor. "Err, no... not really." 196 figured the mech would have noticed sooner, if he hadn't been so set on not looking at him. He had been 'invisible' for most of the journey through Kalis. "It's a very... complex type of optical camouflage. You could have seen through it if you had the time and knew what to look for. I did say I was a stealth unit." The infiltrator was going to attempt to change the subject when Yuri piped up.

"I am _never_ fully unarmed, 'jack," she said. "If I don't have my swords, I have my daggers. I am also considered a close-quarters combat bot. Is this it?"

"Yeah, it belonged to a friend of mine when I used to live here." Wheeljack punched in a string of Cybertronian numbers into the security panel on a post positioned on the outside of a glowing fence. The building behind the fence didn't look so beat up as the other buildings 196 and Yuri had seen, the latter giving off a long low whistle. The security measures accepted the code, and the system that had defended the warehouse for the vorns that Kalis had been abandoned finally shorted out with a few sparks. "Even if he was still alive, he wouldn't mind me appropriating some of his stock for you and the rest of your... friends."

196 made a noncommittal hum as they followed the inventor across the loading yard of the large warehouse, wondering just how heavy of a load the mech wanted for his work and if he should call back to the _ATHENS_ for some help. Folding his frame to follow the enthusiastic inventor, 196 ducked through the main doors and straightened up with an impressed whistle as he caught sight of the warehouse's contents. "Wow. Please tell me we won't need all of this."

Wheeljack finally had an opportunity to laugh at him for once, and took it gleefully as Yuri giggled slightly. "No," the inventor managed between his snickers, "but we are going to need a bit of everything. Different weight plates go on different areas, some mechs need heavier weights than most femmes, and that means we need a few of every type of plating." The inventor grunted as he tried to maneuver one of the very heavy sheets of plating to an anti-gravity lift he had snagged on his way in. 196 raised an optic ridge, and before Wheeljack could comment, he easily lifted the unwieldy plate and set it down where the inventor wanted it. "Stronger than your frame would suggest, aren't you?"

The slighter mech frowned at the infiltrator, and the SPARTAN just shrugged again in reply. "How many do you want?"

Yuri was working her way to the lightest of the plates, and started hefting them, moving several piles up or down, if the plate was too light or heavy. Suddenly, a number of plates started getting tossed over, and 196 caught them, setting them onto a second anti-gravity lift next to the inventor's. "Those are mine," she called.

* * *

039 was waiting for the three outside of the _ATHENS_ and raised an optic ridge at the high-stacked anti-gravity lift that they brought with them, Yuri pulling a decidedly less-stacked anti-grav lift behind her, then turned to address a flustered Wheeljack. "Zero-four-six told me I was to assist you in getting a room set up and to help with whatever work you needed, one-nine-six," the infiltrator tilted his helm to the side in response. "Three-four-one said to keep the scatter gun and go claim a room."

The inventor jumped as 196 slapped him roughly on the back. "Alrighty then, 'jack. I leave you in zero-three-nine's capable hands."

He could only wave, as the lighter mech was still trying not to offend anybot by gawking offensively, and nearly yelped as 039 unexpectedly took control of the lift from him. "One of the cargo rooms has been cleared for your use, and has been stocked with all the tools that four-five-eight could locate." Still maneuvering the lift, the close-quarters combat specialist stopped short of a door in what the inventor still thought of as the blue hall. "There is one slight problem."

As it seemed that most of the mechs and a few of the femmes that inhabited the ship were taller than he was, Wheeljack was keeping his optics on the floor as he followed 039's pedes. "Well, I'm an inventor. If you tell me what's wrong, I'm sure I can help.

Said inventor crashed into the SPARTAN mech's back as he failed to notice that the larger mech had stopped. 039 looked down at the startled mech calmly. "We don't have blueprints. Our frames are... were, prototypes." He opened the door to the cargo bay not occupied with the Cryo-Stasis Tanks and steered the anti-gravity lift inside. "The only one who has anything remotely close to blueprints is Yuri."

"Oh... slaggit all." Still sitting on the floor, Wheeljack lifted a hand to rub his helm as he tried to find a way around not having to inspect every bot on the ship to make up new blueprints for them. "Uh... I could work up the armor plates individually and attach them as they become ready... or work the plates up first and attach them once the set is done... oh, _Primus_," by this time 039 had returned for the hapless inventor still in the middle of the hallway, Yuri standing nearby, her optics amused as she listened to him think out loud, "we'll have to do this on a bot-by-bot basis."

"True enough, I suppose." Wheeljack jerked and looked up into yellow optics as the mech leaned forward to grasp the inventor's arm plating and yanked him upright. "Since I am to be assisting you, we can start with me. Particularly because it seems that you can't look armorless bots in the optics." The slighter mech's vocalizer fins flashed a dull pink as the SPARTAN mech steered him into the cargo bay. "Do you need anything else?"

Wheeljack spent a breem looking around the cargo bay. Whoever 458 was had found him a good number of useful tools and a few he couldn't recognize, but what he could see in the bins the tools were stored in was enough for working up decent armor plates. "This should be good. I am going to need some energon and a berth."

"Refit has informed us you would call our energon mid-grade," when Wheeljack just waved a hand as he started to sort the tool bins to show he didn't care what grade it was, 039 carried on, "and three-four-one said you were to have your own room in the crew quarters while you are with us. I will be right back with your energon."

Leaving the inventor to happily muttering over the tools, 039 left the cargo bay doors and smirked at the smear of ripples that betrayed 127's stealth system stationed across from the doorway, next to Yuri, who had the datapad that had her schematics in hand, both of whom were stationed across from the doorway. 046 had judged Wheeljack to be a noncombatant, but that didn't mean the SPARTANs were just going to let him or Yuri, who was a combatant, and a damn good one, to wander around unchecked. 127 would be relieved by either 341 or 196 in what Refit had called four joors of time.

As the close-quarters combat specialist walked to the engineering room for a 'cube' of energon, Refit had explained _that_ when she was going over Cybertronians in general and he had rigged up a dispenser on the ex-AI's limited knowledge, and wondered if 046 and 341 had decided how much they were going to tell Wheeljack about what and who they really were, let alone whether or not they were going to do something about Yuri.

196 had kept his comm line open while the inventor had been talking to him, and every SPARTAN had heard the confusion in the mech's vocalizer as he questioned about the roster numbers. 341 had fretted that the mech might refuse to help if he knew they had originally been organic creatures or now something comparable to what Cybertronians referred to as war bots. Apparently, many Cybertronians found the idea of mechs and femmes built solely for war as distasteful as many of the civilian Humans had found the SPARTAN-Programs; well before the benefits of having SPARTANs in the war efforts were made public knowledge.

039 found 341 and 196 in the engineering room, the tactician was frowning at the collection of dusty cubes that the infiltrator had brought back as the both inspected the stack. The femme raised an optic ridge as she lifted one of the empty containers and inspected the carved outside. "Why is it a cube? Why are there no proper cups?"

196 merely shrugged at her as he waved a greeting to the other SPARTAN mech. "They do have cups, but Refit said that the Cybertronians use them for the little ones, the sparklings that have no coordination." The infiltrator handed the close-quarters combat specialist a clean cube as he picked himself up one and continued to mock his old squad leader. "Suck it up. You know the saying, 'When in Rome..."

"Bite me," the tactician snarled back as she waved 039 to precede her to the rigged dispenser as she picked up a cube for herself. "It better taste like coffee."

The close-quarters combat specialist smirked as he listened to the two SPARTAN-IIIs argue back and forth good naturedly about the desired taste of the energon. As he left, the tactician gave him a curt farewell that would have normally made him annoyed, but since most of the mechs and femmes were still getting used to each other's quirks, himself included, he just considered it a personality failure of the XO's and replied in kind.

It took him only a breem to leave and return with the inventor's energon, and 039 nodded to the still concealed 127 as he let himself back in as Yuri passed Wheeljack her schematics datapad, and left, nodding at 039 as she passed him in the doorway.

Wheeljack had been busy while the SPARTAN mech had been gone, most of the metal that 196 and Yuri had helped him bring back was stacked next to the wall according to thickness and alloy grades, the tools neatly laid out instead of packed in the bins and boxes 458 had tossed them in. The mech himself was seated on the one of two chairs that was in the room working on a thin sheet of metal and had quickly looked up with a flash of yellow-orange color when 039 let himself in. "Great! You're back, we can start with your hands while I refuel."

Smirking, the SPARTAN mech set the cube down next to the inventor and snagged the remaining seat. Wheeljack still couldn't look him in the optics.

* * *

Jazz and Prowl had made it to Simfur an orn ahead of schedule by skipping some of the prearranged stops on their trips. The last time the medic Ratchet had called in to the saboteur he sounded even more irritable and grouchy, and that had made enough of an impression on Jazz that he had felt that a little more haste was called for.

Prowl, once the silver special ops mech had remembered to fill the black and white Praxian in on the search and rescue side-trip, had agreed in his mono-toned way that looking for Wheeljack was important but cautioned that the inventor may have been set upon by Decepticons and deactivated if he had not limped his way to Simfur's gates yet.

Even so, Jazz had used the 'looking for a popular mech' angle to pump information out of the Neutral city's officials about the flow of traffic in and out of Simfur's territory that he was now sharing with the tactician. "Dere was ah sightin' 'o 'Cons, but ah few travelers claimed deir offline frames are now decorating da side of ah road ta Yuss."

Prowl compared the sightings to Wheeljack's known route and to the hazy reports of a meteor that Jazz had also found out about from talking with some of the more pleasantly mannered civilian bots. "There does seem to be a correlation between the three events, even with allowances made for inaccurate reports." The Praxian stood from the bench he had been waiting for the saboteur on and started out for the main highway to Yuss. "The report about Decepticons worries me. Whatever found them could have found Wheeljack as well."

"Maybe, but we should find somethin'."

* * *

Wheeljack had been with the SPARTANs now one orn short of a full megacycle, the end of this cycle saw him cleaning up as 039 helped the last mech for the orn into the last of his armor. 113, as this particular mech was called, was one of the three seekers on the _ATHENS_, and he delighted in pricking 039's slight temper when he saw the other mech. The inventor listened with half an audio as the two bickered.

"No, not... stand still, you glitch!" 039 had the seeker's last wing plate in hand and was trying to attach it.

"Frag you. That – stop! That tickles!" 113 shuddered as the last and final plate clicked home. He swung but missed Wheeljack's helper as he stomped out. Yuri slipped in and picked up the plates that she'd had Wheeljack make up for her, and as 039 attached the wing plates, she attached the rest, each plate clicking into place where she had wanted them. "Thank you, 'jack," she said, softly.

"No problem, Yuri," said Wheeljack, smirking safely behind his ever present battlemask as his helper made some arcane sign at the seeker's back with one hand, while attaching a wing plate with the other, before grabbing the larger pieces of scrap metal and tossing them into a bin to be melted down later.

He had mostly gotten used to the violent but not harmful way the mechs and femmes usually dug into each other in some type of a show of comradely association, but Yuri was either with Refit helping the slight femme with something, or helping Wheeljack get the armor plates onto the other bots, yet... she seemed slightly distant from the rest of the mechs and femmes.

The first time someone had swung at 039 had startled him badly. 341, who the inventor had later learned was what they called an XO, something he took to mean their Third in Command, or as they termed it, 'executive officer', had verbally ripped into the hapless mech that they had been fitting for his armor for startling the 'noncom' after he had jerked back at the show of violence. She had been escorting a femme by the name of Refit, who was next to be fitted for armor, and after that incident no bot except Yuri, on the ship moved faster than Wheeljack could track with his optics.

The inventor's smile faltered as that thought led him to another that had been bothering him for a while. He knew most of the mechs and femmes on board the _ATHENS_ by now; he new that only 039 had any working knowledge about their frames, though he was often helped by Yuri, 193 had most of the scientific knowledge that they possessed, and Refit and Yuri were the only ones who had actual names. He knew that the three seekers and the 'Valkyrie' – as Yuri had named her frame-type, having there be no other ideas for it's name, let alone what it _was_, short of it having a strange alt-form that they hadn't either found or made yet – had been surprised by their wings, even if they had tried to hide it, and that 341 and 027 had been very confused over the purpose of their door-wings, and that 046 and 459 had been vastly amused by their tank-like alt-forms. The reasons why had never been uttered, even on the rare occasions that the inventor had ventured out among them for his own energon.

One cycle, he had even taken the cycle off and watched the bots run their every cycle drills and perform some kind of full system test, which included some sparring between the bots, and Yuri doing drills with her plasma-forged swords and daggers, and joining in with the sparring without activating either swords or daggers. There were a few bots that left early every cycle and returned very late, most of whom he hadn't seen since he made up their armor sets for them.

After a moment, he flicked a glance to 039 who was now tidying up a few scraps of metal on the work table. "I have a question."

"When don't you?"

"Never!" He had heard 127 respond the same way once, and knew the other mech would snort.

Wheeljack wasn't disappointed. 039 snorted at him, then abandoned the scraps of metal and stole the seat 113 had abandoned, and Yuri stepped over to where 039 had been tidying up, and continued 039's work. From somewhere, one of the femmes had dug up some type of paint and the mech now had pale green armor plates over a light gray under-frame coat, a duller version of his own colors. Wheeljack had made the comment that the bluish sheen to their protoframes would confuse most bots and the mechs and femmes had opted to cover it with a coat of paint. Yuri had ignored the advice, saying, "If someone asks, I painted it. Where's the dark gray paint?"

Yellow optics regarded the inventor with barely-concealed amusement. "Alright, 'jack. What's your question?"

The slighter mech summoned up his courage and blurted out, "Why?" Before the other mech could answer or question what he was asking about, the inventor barreled on in a rush. "Why is that only Refit and Yuri have proper designations? Why is the trine surprised by their own wings? Why do some of you move with no sound? Why do you answer to numbers instead of proper names? Why does Yuri have legs like that?"

039 shut his open mouthplates with a snap, blinked at the now cringing inventor, then sighed and rolled his helm to loosen his neck cables. "Right, come on. Let's go get some energon." When Wheeljack only stared at him, the SPARTAN chuckled wryly. "We'll tell you, but it's a long story, and I think we both need some fuel. Yuri, you're coming too, since you're the only one who knows your full story."

Yuri simply hummed acknowledgement.


End file.
